From squeezing the largest number of people into a single pair of underpants to cooking up the biggest serving of Cantonese fried rice, folks have done some weird and wacky things to claim a world record. To celebrate the news that Guangzhou will soon have the planet’s fastest elevator, we’ve rounded up our top 10 favorite record-breakers based in the PRD.
Well strung
Don’t complain about your woes to Chen Lianzhi, because he’ll start playing the world’s smallest violin. Literally. The 66-year-old senior violinist and luthier set a record in 2009 for his 1-centimeter-long instrument, which boasts over 30 components and took seven years to build. Using a 0.1-millimeter drill point, the Guangzhou native shaped a piece of maple wood the size of a thumbnail and joined all the parts together with glue. “The strings of the violin are so thin, so it is not easy to play anything beautiful. It can just produce some high-pitched sounds, as the strings are so short," admits Chen, who first picked up a violin aged 9.
Thinner is better
In a battle where size does matter, Guangzhou Daming United Rubber Products snatched the Guinness World Record for the thinnest latex condom earlier this year, trumping the previous record-holder, Japan’s Okamoto, by 0.002 millimeters. Measuring 0.036 millimeters (0.0014 inches), the Aoni prophylactic is ultra-light and less than one-sixth the width of the average human strand of hair, according to condom-sizes.org. The company that created it makes 200 million sheaths annually for the Mainland and are now working on other innovations, including a vibrating condom designed to hit a woman’s G-spot and a “silver nano particles-coated sanitizing condom.” Yup, your guess is as good as ours.
A ballsy statement
Just to confirm that the Chinese really are the champions of ping-pong, the Guinness World Record for the largest table tennis tournament was broken on March 31, 2013 in Guangzhou. With 2,048 participants, the event was organized by the Baiyun Sports Bureau and graced by President of the International Table Tennis Federation Adham Sharara. Some 2,336 people had registered in advance of the tournament, but 288 had to be disqualified as they did not turn up for all of their matches.
Baby love
It was all about the group dynamic when 423 pregnant women downward dogged their way into the Guinness World Records as part of the largest prenatal yoga lesson ever seen. Hosted by the Shenzhen Home Women's and Children's Hospital in December 2013, organizers claimed that all the attendees were supporters of natural births. To add some meaning to the event beyond the superficial, doctors, nutritionists and experienced yoga teachers were on hand to answer the women's questions during the day. No water-breaking incidents were reported during the laborious exercise. [This record was recently broken in Hunan. Click here for details.]
Swinging in the rain
Some 2,000 employees of the luxury golf and spa resort Mission Hills in Shenzhen came together in January last year to form a gigantic real-life QR code using umbrellas. The stunt, which required an impressive amount of coordination, set a record for the largest human QR code, according to the World Record Academy. A hot air balloon was sent up some 270 meters off the ground to take photos and test the code, which apparently worked perfectly, bringing social media to new heights.
The railway man
On the misty morning of November 7, 2013, UK native John Daffurn broke the Guinness World Record for the greatest distance traveled by train in 24 hours, journeying a whopping 3,783.91 kilometers – more than 2.5 times the length of Great Britain. Starting from Guangzhou’s South Station, Daffurn headed to Beijing’s West Railway Station by high-speed train, before transferring to Beijing South Railway Station by metro; he then zipped over to Shanghai Railway Station by high-speed train and hopped on the metro to Longyang Lu. We tried to contact the Brit, but rumor has it that he’s retired and bought a car.
Hi-yah!
If you’re into kung fu, the world’s largest Bruce Lee statue kicks butt. Created at a cost of nearly RMB2 million by Cao Chong’en, one of China's top sculptors, the 18.8-meter-tall effigy is a sight to behold. The homage is located at Bruce Lee Paradise, a huge tourist attraction dedicated to the legendary martial artist in Jun'an town, Foshan. Requiring about two years to complete, the kung fu superstar is now truly larger than life.
Water, water everywhere
One record just wasn’t enough for the recently opened Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. Boasting a tank which holds 22.7 million liters of water, the US$806.5 million aquatic theme park set five Guinness World Records: as well as being recognized as the largest aquarium on Earth, the park also has the world's biggest underwater viewing dome, aquarium tank, aquarium window and acrylic panel. The huge tourist attraction is part of Chimelong Hengqin Bay Hotel, the largest ocean ecology-themed hotel in China.
Not so Mini
Created by Mini Cooper China, 1,034 toy cars were used to make the largest toy car mosaic the world has thus far seen at The British School of Guangzhou’s British Day celebration, held on June 15, 2013. Measuring 10.767 square meters, the mosaic depicted the national flag of the United Kingdom. How’s that for patriotic?
Date line
This one must have been a bitter pill to swallow for smugglers: the most expired medicine collected in 24 hours over multiple locations was set by Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Holdings on March 11, 2014. Around 1,072.6 kilograms of drugs past their sell-by date were rounded up, the aim being to deter illegal traffickers and get rid of dangerous waste.
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